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Friday, November 7, 2014

#We Proudly Present: Release Day Blitz

Arcadia

(The Wonderlust Chronicles, #1)

By Hope Christine

Ever since Sky Captain Lemise Holdif was a boy, he’s
been faced with the End of Days. For decades an unknown enemy has been
systematically wiping out life in the galaxy, starting with the most advanced
societies. Now Arcadia, a world built from the trash of an entire galaxy, is
the only planet left capable of distant space travel, and the next target.
Lemise is desperate to save his home world, but his plans are interrupted when
an alien visitor transports onto his ship. Lead Specialist Paelae Madison is
the last of her kind. The only survivor of the First Attack, and bent on
revenge for the destruction of her people. In desperation, she teleports onto
an Arcadian ship and offers aid in the coming war. Arcadia sees her as a hero,
but Lemise is weary to trust a stranger who’s survived over five hundred
previous battles. Together the two fight to defeat an enemy far more advanced,
and far more cunning than Arcadia has ever known. But extinction lurks around
every corner, and The Enemy isn’t the only one threatening to destroy the
world.

EXTRACT:

Officers stumbled over each other in
preparation for the day ahead. As soon as the first rays of purple sunshine
peaked over the city, a line had started to form for the bathrooms, and Paelae
was thrust back into the world of the living with a jolt. Sweat covered her
face, and her breathing was too rapid.

Despite
the cramped space, the other women gave her a reasonable berth, some eying her
while checking their weapons.

Had
she screamed in her sleep? The nights had grown increasingly rare when she
didn’t have a nightmare.

“Hey.”
Paelae sat up and tugged the clothes out of her trunk. She ran a hand over the
purple and black jumpsuit provided for her; it felt wrong, wearing the colors
of another people. It was the first time anyone offered her a uniform. She preferred
the Imladian one; it was familiar.

“Hey.”
This time she looked up, noticing that the one-word sentence had been directed
to her.

A
woman stood at the end of her bed, arms crossed and legs apart as if at ease.
“Name’s Benni. I’m your guard.”

Of
course, the woman from the ship.

Benni
was a head shorter than Paelae and bore the markings of a low rank.

“I’m
Paelae,” she said and stood to greet Benni with a hard stare. “I’m your…” She
searched for an appropriate word.

“Ally,”
Benni finished for her. “Sky cap’s waiting outside for you.”

Paelae
took the cue and began her attempt to navigate out of the barracks, jumping
over beds and weaving around people until she reached the metal door. Outside,
the world was tainted purple as the sun filtered through Arcadia’s atmospheric
shielding, a product of too many chemical bombs. What had once been a rushed
patch job to keep air on the planet had since evolved into a last line of
defense worthy of acknowledgment. It was one of few things Arcadians boasted
about among the planets—when the planets still existed.

Captain
Lemise stood just outside the barrack doors, looking across the miles of
asphalt designated for intergalactic travel. Bordering the west side of the
airfield and encroaching fast upon the north, were piles of rejected technology
and broken spaceships tossed out by hundreds of different races.

That’s
how Arcadia had started, as a junkyard, but then lost voyagers found a home on
it, attracting others—from those shunned by their own people to travelers broken
down with no funds to continue on their journey. Eventually, it became a home
for those who had nowhere else to go, and scavenging became more than an act of
survival; it became a trade.

Most
of the north and east were surrounded by low-class, brick apartment buildings,
meant for the soldiers and their families.

“You’re
not in uniform.” Lemise deduced upon seeing her. “If you want on my Chasers,
you wear my uniform.”

Paelae
shrugged. “Bathroom line was too long to change.”

Lemise
began to walk away. “Then wake up earlier.”

Paelae
walked close behind with Benni in tow as the sky captain began to explain.
“Miss Demitri is our chief innovation and engineering specialist; with a
screwdriver and a handful of computer chips, she could change a toaster into an
engine. You will work beside her under close supervision. I want a particle
shield by the end of the week.”

She
almost laughed. Particle shields were difficult with the right materials, but
with makeshift metals and roundabout wiring, he would be lucky if it turned on
in three weeks.

“In
exchange, you will work beside me in the evenings,” he continued.

Lemise
didn’t expand any further on her evening expectations, but Paelae suspected
they would be dull at best until Lemise began to trust her better.

“Unless
there are complications. Then I will jettison you out of an airlock in EWAN
territory. Am I understood?”

“Yes,
sir,” she said. Centuries of military training had drilled the habit into her.

He
led them to a jeep, and another soldier drove them east to a warehouse that
stood ten stories tall. Behind it, a mesh, wire gate separated civilian from
soldiers. Paelae watched as a group of young boys tossed a ball back and forth
to each other, running down a deserted street to throw it in a trash can.

They
used to play a similar game on the cityship as trainees. It was one of the few
bits and pieces they had smuggled from the Earthen culture, played in secret
when the officers had left.

Once,
General Amir had caught them midgame when he came to get Paelae for sparring
lessons. Anything Earthen was not to be spoken of or remembered in any way, but
she had been rebellious as all teenagers were those days. Everyone had frozen
in place. The terror coursing through their bodies made them forget to even
salute. Trying to run would have been devastating.

Amir
had walked between them, assessing the trainees. He had been furious, but his
anger hadn’t been displayed in shouting or beating; it had filled the silence
that spread between moments in time.

“Madison,” he addressed with a calm,collected demeanor, turning to look at her. “Why do we not register Earth as a
planet in our systems?”

She didn’t reply.

“Madison!”
This time the words were forceful, bringing her back from the past. Lemise and
Benni had already departed from the vehicle and waited for her.

With
a sigh, she shook the memory away, letting it dissipate into the morning air
and jumped out of the jeep.

Lemise
led them through an open garage door. Inside, the warehouse resembled a
miniature junkyard. As Paelae looked closer, she could tell that the piles had
been organized to some degree. One had wire, another had chips, and a third was
weaponry.

“Demitri!”
Lemise called. A clatter of metal followed, and the sky captain took that as a
cue. They wove in and out of large piles and then climbed over smaller ones
until the ground could be seen again. A giant square of cleared floor sat under
an open roof, and near the opposite end, a young woman drew up schematics on a
metalwork table.

“Demitri,”
Lemise called again as they walked up to her.

Demitri
glanced up through layers of grease stains and smudges of dirt. Bright red hair
fell in a tangled mess past her shoulders, held back by a set of goggles. Deep,
blue crescents were visible beneath her eyes, as if the woman had been bruised.

“Did
you sleep here last night?” He didn’t address her as a soldier, nor did she
wear a uniform. Instead, brown overalls adorned her skeletal frame, and a belt
of odd tools kept it hanging up.

Demitri
gave him a confused look. “No. I’ve only just arrived.”

“You
were supposed to be in an hour ago,” Lemise said as the military eased back
into his speech.

“I
was delayed,” she said and threw her arms open. “It’s not like I don’t stay
past midnight anyway. Every genius needs sleep. Is this the Imladian?”

Lemise
pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “This is Madison.”

Demitri
stepped around the table and snatched Paelae’s arm up, pushing back the black
leather sleeve. After a moment, Demitri let out a whistle. “That’s a particle
shield all right. I’ll need the big guns for those supplies.”

“One
week,” Lemise said.

Demitri
laughed before realizing he was serious. “Two weeks, sleep, free meals, and you
throw in that glass plating I need to fix the Mirage.”

“One
week, no sleep, free breakfast, and you fix the Mirage because it’s your job, not a bargaining chip.”

“Two
weeks, no sleep, and lunches.”

“A
week and a half, sleep, and no food.”

Demitri
was about to throw in another bargain when a little girl ran out from behind a
pile of piping. She held up a colored picture with evident pride, tugging on
Demitri’s pants and grunting to get her attention.

“A
week and a half, no sleep, and forget this happened,” Demitri said as she
placed a hand on her daughter’s head. “The daycare was filled, and Pops is
working cross-continent. I wouldn’t bring her unless it was my only option, I
swear.”

Lemise
knelt down to the girl’s level. “Hello, Demi.” He smiled.

Demi
held up her picture of colorful stick figures, grunting as she pointed in
stunted movements at each one.

“I
see.” Lemise took her picture and gave it a further inspection. “It is a
beautiful picture. Will you draw me one?”

Paelae
watched in mild horror. Demi was broken. On the cityship, they considered it a
mercy to chloroform such children at birth, if they made it that far without
detection; and it shocked her that all those years she never thought twice
about it. Never before had she encountered one on other planets, though she’d
heard stories.

Lemise
stood, turning back to Demitri. “Will she be okay around new faces?”

“Yeah,
she’s better with it now.” Demitri cracked her knuckles in anticipation.

“A
week and a half, no sleep, and lunches,” he offered.

“Deal.”

They
shook on it.

“I’ll
leave you to it then,” Lemise said and left, disappearing behind piles of
trash.

Demitri
pulled a chair up for her daughter to continue drawing, and then lounged back
in one of her own.

“You
named her after yourself,” Paelae stated when the silence had extended beyond
comfort.

“Of
course I did. She’s a Devonian.” Demitri fiddled with the lenses on her
goggles.

Paelae
nodded, though she didn’t know what that meant. “Should we get started, then?”

Demitri
tossed her a pencil. “Copy your arm, please.”

She
looked at the writing instrument with amusement. Once, this had been the only
way to transcribe thoughts, but it had been centuries since she used one. “I
don’t know how to use this.”

That
caught Demitri’s attention. “You don’t know how to use a pencil?”

“Not
anymore, no.”

Demitri
laughed. “Aliens, sometimes you get too advanced for your own good. Come here.
I’ll do it.” Another pencil was pulled from the depths of her ponytail. “Please
tell me you can at least use a welder.”

Sneak Peek Into Arcadian Culture:

Arcadia is a junkyard planet but it
collects more than just broken ships. Before it was a recognized planet, it had
been a place of refuge for lost voyagers. Eventually it began to collect people
like it collected trashed technology. Some were refugees, others were stranded
after running out of money for their journey, and some were simply shunned from
their own worlds.

With so many different people there’s a lot
of borrowed pieces of culture that has been meshed together to form the Arcadian
way of life. For example: they love to refurbish or repurpose technology but it
is the highest crime of their court systems to help create or aide in the
creation of cyborgs: part human, part technology. Don’t improve what man did not make.

The law developed from their belief that a
soul cannot find the World Beyond unless the body is whole. It makes navigating
the Field of Stars, a type of purgatory, difficult because a partial soul would
have to wait for a whole soul to help guide them. This belief was stolen from
the Monks on the planet Maldeen who had a very different lifestyle, rarely
traveling into space.

Paelae is the outsider on Arcadia, she
comes from a more crisp and clean way of traveling space. It’s like taking
Captain Picard and putting him on the Serenity.
She has a hard time adjusting to their way of life but as you read it from her
perspective you begin to pick up on where all those bits and pieces of Arcadian
society came from.

Lemise, who is born on Arcadia and has had
little contact with other races (since most just fire at them for scavenging
the graves of the dead) sees Paelae’s past life on the Imladian ships as very
excessive and wasteful. In this way, as well as others, they tend to clash.

As the story progresses you can really see how
Paelae’s and Lemise’s culture begin to shape who they become from a young age.

Get Your Copy Here:

About the
Author:

Hope Christine was born in Arizona and raised in
Colorado. Her youth was spent in Narnia and her teenage years in Middle-Earth.
Like most, she grew up with reluctance and then attended college for multiple
degrees before settling on Linguistics.

Today she studies Middle-Eastern languages and works
in retail.

She’s opinionated, blunt, loves to bike, and bares an
extreme hate of peaches.